Tweetea brings together a diverse group of people with interests to discuss social media. Media relations was discussed and how to better serve everyone involved. How do we communicate with the Media and to get our messages across to them with out spam, awkward email or just being annoying and unproductive from a Public Relations perspective. Tweetea happens every Tuesday, from 7:30 – 10 p.m. at Goldfish Tea in Royal Oak off on Fourth Street.

Twitter is a great tool to state what you are looking for but when your profile is limited to 140 characters you can only say so much.

What is the best solution to help reporters get the information they need and public relations professionals to pass on their information to someone who will promote it?

There was some talk of innovation and things we could do. Help a Reporter Out (HARO)is a great service but what if you are looking for a local flare?

What if you decided to Facebook friend a reporter? Simple. You can find out what you have in common, what stories they need, and they can use it as a distribution channel of ideas?

Just a thought. When you do so, if the reporters collectively decide to change their status and you are looking at them then it is more up to the minute than Linked In. You could solve their problem, learn more about them and well just be nice to each other?

I realize this isn’t out of the box thinking. But, if public relations and journalists realized we are all in this together and there is an easier way to find out what about each other and create relationships instead of fighting them.

Wouldn’t the communications industry get along better? You could solve some of the problems just by talking and people would know what you were writing, when your deadline was, and everything.

Terry Foster from the Detroit News often uses his Facebook to get feedback on some of his columns. He is a sports columnist but I am sure this could be used for different purposes.

In time I am sure there will be some totally awesome platform some start up will invent to make this a better process. In the meantime, build relationships with Facebook and Twitter. If used properly, I think the spam emails will be cut in half.

Then take this offline by having Tweetups so we can find out what each other wants and needs? I realize everything is deadline driven but in business relationships run smoothly if you do business with people who you know, like and trust.

The mission of #journchat has always been to improve the relationships between public relations professionals, journalists and bloggers. Together we’ve created a safe environment to explore each industry and ultimately how social media is influencing all of us.

The goal of #journchat LIVE is to have simultaneous live events occurring at the same time around the United States (and elsewhere if time zones permit). We’ve spent more than seven months sharing our thoughts and opinions online. While this format may not change, it was suggested that we incorporate a face-to-face event.

@prsarahevans created this weekly chat and this is from her email to me. I was urged to take control and be the #journchat Champion for Detroit. So far I have emailed and through some of my connections received positive feedback on the situation and a warning.

I am new to Public Relations field but I do believe in collaborative learning and I have found my way around the digital landscape and am very active in the community. I am active in PRSA Technology but still need to get into the game and call people to interview them.

I have never been a leader. Normally, I would rather sit behind the sidelines and then add to the conversation. I am conquering my fear of leading, doing something positive for Detroit, and am going to try and do it maybe with out a laptop. Which is going to be hard because a Tweetchat screen would be great on a screen so people can see the syndication.

As I have said before this is going to be a challenge. I haven’t worked in the industry really long and I am trying to bring everyone together . I have included radio as well. I believe they are in this with us and maybe if they are on Twitter they can chime in too. They are losing jobs at a frequency close to that of the newspapers and DJs are being replaced by voice tracks and MP3 files. People are turning to their Ipods instead of the radio.

This should be an interesting thing if everyone shows up and is involved in the conversation.

Can you give me suggestions on how to make this a great event? What do you suggest for a first time event planner? HELP!!